One Day in the Life of Ivan De
One Day in the Life of Ivan DeBy: Elsbeth
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich concentrates on one man, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, as he lives through one day in a Soviet gulag. The conditions of the camp are harsh, illustrating a world that has no tolerance for independence. Camp prisoners depend almost totally on each other's productivity and altruism, even for the most basic human needs. The dehumanising atmosphere of the gulag ironically forces prisoners to discover means to retain their individuality while conforming to the harsh rules, spoken and unspoken, of the camp. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich serves as a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit. Solzhenitsyn provides his readers with a seemingly hopeless situation, and then gives them characters who struggle fiercely to maintain their individuality. Ivan had been in forced labour camps for eight years when the book starts. Shukhov was taken prisoner in a German camp. He escaped and was able to return to his country where he was sentenced for high treason. The officials believed he had surrendered to the Germans and had returned to spy on his country for them. He was originally sent to Ust-Izhma in which the zeks were normally kept. After a while he was sent to a special camp where they kept the political prisoners. These gulags were the repositories for Stalin's enemies, real or suspected. They housed many people taken in the great purges. It is estimated that the population in these camps was over 8.8 million from 1929-53. The resilience of the human spirit is perhaps the most important theme of the novel. It demonstrates the possibility of success despite a cruel environment. Even though these people have been imprisoned in these camps, they manage to survive. They live in the worst conditions, but by focusing themselves on the basics of human life they live through each day, one at a time. Time is a very important factor for those living in the camps. Each moment they can get that the authorities do not control gives them a feeling of freedom and hope. These spare seconds enable Denisovich to keep going, giving him time to collect his thoughts, and rest his work-weary body. "[T]hat moment ... belonged to the prisoners. While the authorities were sorting things out you stuck to the warmest place you could find. Sit down, take a rest, you'll have time enough to sweat blood." Another major theme is the trust between individuals and their leaders and peers, a relationship necessary for day-to-day...
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